Let's be clear. An incumbent should be ahead right now, not tied. The challenger should be ahead only after his convention, when folks start paying attention. Not you. Not me. But non-political junkies first have to evaluate (and fire) Bush (in their minds) before they'll even look at Kerry. And then they check out the alternative. And that won't really happen until July. (Remember July? That's when things are scheduled to get better in Iraq.) In the meantime, Kerry's doing pretty well for a guy cable news won't cover.

It's the expectations game, really, which Republicans should understand because it's the very thing which drives the stock market, the engine of the unfettered marketplace they say the love so much (unless, of course, a level playing field is harmful to those who give them money, in which case tariffs and regulations are the only answer!). It's not what your company does that matters, or how much profit you make, or even what your dividend is, it's how close you come to Wall Street's expectations that determines whether you're doing well or not.

Bush played the expectations game very well when he was a candidate, and throughout his time in office, in fact. People could see that he wasn't the sharpest arrow in the quiver, and they therefore dialed down their expectations for him considerably -- so much so that answering a question in semi-coherent English or reading a speech from a TelePrompTer without looking like an idiot was apparently enough to declare him to be apt material for the Oval Office, quite "Presidential". As usually happened in his well-protected life, Bush coasted on this for a long time.

But now, it's to the point where journalists who have experience in covering presidential re-election bids really do have to know, by feel or by analysis, where someone like Bush is supposed to be at this juncture, and it's going to be more and more difficult for Rove and the GOP to keep their expectations suppressed. Sooner or later, everyone covering the election is going to come nose-to-nose with the plain fact that Bush should be doing a hell of a lot better than he is, but he ain't.

By coming back from 10-20 points down to essentially even with Bush, Kerry has won the first phase of the campaign. The next phase is winning the conventions, and we'll see what kind of bounce Kerry (and Bush) get from them. History would say that the Republicans generally smoke the Dems at producing slick propagandized convention, but Clinton showed us that both sides can do it -- and this year, with the party united in a way it hasn't been for generations, there'll be less grit in the grease, and less need to use the convention to placate various constituencies within the party. This will allow the party to shape the convention to be a huge transmitter pointed directly at the heads of all the uncommited voter in the vital swing states -- which means that no one should expect to see a production that's even vaguely leftist in tone, and liberals had better not beef about it, either.

Also working in our favor is that there are indications that Rove and company are slipping and don't have as sure a handle on spin control as they've had in the past. Once extremely deft, they've become ham-fisted and irritable the more things have not gone their way. I wouldn't expect any really big boo-boos, like Buchanan's hate-a-thon speech some years back, but instead I'll be looking for little slips, roughness of tone, miscues and mishandling of negative factors (like the demonstrations) all caused by the pressures they feel themselves to be under.

In any case, whatever happens in the coming month or so, make no mistake about it, right now by being tied with Bush, Kerry is winning.

Update: On Tallking Points Memo, Ruy Teixeira (subbing for Josh Marshall) quotes Frank Newport, editor-in-chief of The Gallup poll:

Based on historical patterns, Bush's job approval rating is thus underperforming the pattern of presidents who have won re-election. In the broadest sense, Bush's job approval rating has generally been remarkably stable this year, averaging about 50% (which is a symbolic dividing line for an incumbent seeking re-election) since mid-January. The current downtick in his ratings puts him below the pattern of successful presidents. Having a rating below 50% (as is the case with his last four ratings) is not a good sign for an incumbent. If Bush wins this November, he would be the first president since Harry Truman to come from a below 50% rating to win re-election.

The fact that Bush has been behind the likely Democratic nominee, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, in several Gallup Poll re-election trial heat ballots this year, means that Bush's re-election probabilities are lower than those of his successful predecessors. None of the five presidents who won re-election were behind their eventual opponent in any trial heats after January in the year prior to their election. If Bush wins this year, he will become the first president to come from behind in election year spring polls to win.